101-Game Losing Streak Ends as Head Coach Gives 'All Glory to God'
Losing seasons in football are common – but for one Alabama high school, losing became so routine that entire classes of students were graduating without ever experiencing the sweet taste of victory.
Such was the reality for the Columbia Eagles, a Huntsville, Ala., team that had suffered 101 straight losses and had not won in more than a decade until Friday, when they fell behind 14-0 but found the resolve to rally for a 41-14 victory over the Greensboro Raiders, leading students to storm the field in glee and leaving fans on both sides a bit stunned.
Columbia had not won a game since 2015 – when the current seniors were in first grade.
Head coach Sammie Coates, who is in his second season and starred as a player at nearby Auburn University before playing in the NFL, celebrated afterward by taking a Gatorade bath from his players.
“[It was] truly a blessing. All the glory to God. God blessed me being in this situation, to bring this to this school, to this community,” Coates told local media after the game.
“I want to say thank you to the administration, to the school for supporting me, having my back the whole time, and the players showing up and fighting every single day throughout the spring, throughout the summer. … They deserve every moment of this. They stuck it out.”
Coates deflected any credit for the historic victory.
“I'm just happy for the kids, man, – [it] ain't nothing about me. It's about those kids that worked their tail off the whole time I've been here. They never gave up.”
Asked to compare it to his other athletic achievements, Coates mentioned the famous Kick Six game, in which he and the Auburn Tigers defeated rival Alabama in 2013 on a wild 109-yard return by Chris Davis of a missed field goal as time expired. Coates caught a touchdown pass in that game with 32 seconds left to set up Davis’ heroics.
“It reminded me of the Iron Bowl – the Kick Six,” he said with a smile.
While at Auburn, Coates credited the late Chette Williams, then the chaplain, for helping him get his life on the right path. Coates was baptized there as a player.
“A lot of the guys in that class that came in with me, a lot of the guys on the team that year, got baptized,” Coates said in 2024. “After that, man, the way I looked at life, the way I did things, the way I carried myself, was based on how Brother Chette helped me so much through my journey.”
Photo Credit: ©Screenshot/AL.com
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
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Originally published August 24, 2026.
